Author Topic: DONE: On Screen Button That Sends Keyboard Commands (Read 182827 times)

cranioscopical · « **Reply #200 on:** September 27, 2011, 12:25 AM »

@nudone

I was trying the template you posted.

Whether to Photoshop or to Illustrator, any key action causes a debug dialogue like this

to appear. Clicking OK dismisses that and then performs the action.
This is with CS5 on W7-64.

Any ideas?

Ath · « **Reply #201 on:** September 27, 2011, 01:31 AM »

~~OMG, I left a debug message in won't be able to really fix that till tonite, after I get home~~

~~I'll hang an attachment here in a sec...~~

False positive...

Ath · « **Reply #202 on:** September 27, 2011, 01:44 AM »

@Cranioscopical: You'd better update your WinSendKeys, it's an outdated version that had this 'additional info' feature

nudone · « **Reply #203 on:** September 27, 2011, 02:04 AM »

Have you configured WinSendKeys? The path is probably different.

Edit:
Ath beat me to it.

cranioscopical · « **Reply #204 on:** September 27, 2011, 02:15 AM »

@Cranioscopical: You'd better update your WinSendKeys, it's an outdated version that had this 'additional info' feature

-Ath (September 27, 2011, 01:44 AM)

Thanks! I ran the updater and didn't pay much attention

To make matters worse, I see this was discussed near to the very beginning of the topic. For a modest fee I'm prepared to go away and leave you in peace.

cranioscopical · « **Reply #205 on:** September 27, 2011, 02:18 AM »

Have you configured WinSendKeys? The path is probably different.
-nudone (September 27, 2011, 02:04 AM)

Yes, I managed to get the right path. That's one out of ten so far, I believe.
Nice job on those templates

Ath · « **Reply #206 on:** September 27, 2011, 02:47 AM »

Have you configured WinSendKeys? The path is probably different.
-nudone (September 27, 2011, 02:04 AM)
Yes, I managed to get the right path. That's one out of ten so far, I believe.
Nice job on those templates
-cranioscopical (September 27, 2011, 02:18 AM)

Simplest would be to *only* configure the path to WinSendKeys in WinButtons.wbuc (or WinButtons.ini if you have only that), as all other templates fall back to the setting stored there. And yes, that's a feature

cranioscopical · « **Reply #207 on:** September 27, 2011, 02:20 PM »

Simplest would be to *only* configure the path to WinSendKeys in WinButtons.wbuc
-Ath (September 27, 2011, 02:47 AM)

Great! I had no trouble with WinSendKeys but that saves explicit pathing in each wbuc. I used to know about this but I've forgotten everything, did I mention that I used to know about this?

So, a semi-colon marks a comment. Is there a block-comment syntax? (Doesn't matter if not).

Everything's rolling along just fine. Now I have a simple-to-program, context-aware touch-screen controller with as many (or few) buttons as I need in order to drive just about any mainstream application.

nudone · « **Reply #208 on:** September 27, 2011, 02:24 PM »

(Don't forget to post a photo of your 10" screen when you've set some buttons up.)

cranioscopical · « **Reply #209 on:** September 27, 2011, 05:45 PM »

(Don't forget to post a photo of your 10" screen when you've set some buttons up.)
-nudone (September 27, 2011, 02:24 PM)

I mentioned that I looked at the 10" screens but I decided against one — for the time being at least. Now I'm glad that I did: the 7" screen seems just right for the job.
I've yet to decide whether or not I want more than very basic graphics on the buttons. Colour groupings, probably, but icons/images — not so sure.

I was up most of the night working on this, trying to see what I could stitch together but I think I finally found the ideal button layout.

DONE: On Screen Button That Sends Keyboard Commands

nudone · « **Reply #210 on:** September 27, 2011, 06:13 PM »

I didn't see that one coming. Well done.

cranioscopical · « **Reply #211 on:** September 28, 2011, 06:36 AM »

@Ath Has this one been covered?

Is there now a way, or what is the best way to send a series of key strokes, then a delay, then another series? Or a series, then wait for an event, then another series?

I have a friend whom I'd like to set up with a MIMO and the fruits of your labour.

I'm thinking that will need either a couple of days of setup, while we figure out habits and needs, or some kind of Procrustean utility that can auto-generate a fixed screenful of buttons then loop through each one, requesting:

application context		filepath
a caption	forced format	text
an image	forced format	filepath
executable		filepath	params
keystrokes		keys

the problem with the latter being subsequent editing for omissions, errors etc.

[ this post copied to the WinSendKeys thread ]

Ath · « **Reply #212 on:** September 28, 2011, 08:31 AM »

Chris,

This feels more like something to pick up in the WinSendKeys thread, I'm quite sure (most of) it can be taken care of.

Ath · « **Reply #213 on:** October 08, 2011, 09:37 AM »

Next update will be for WBE getting a better configuration of all Image parameters (7 comma separated values is a bit cumbersome)
-Ath (September 26, 2011, 05:59 PM)

Promises are there to be fulfilled, so I added an Image parameters configuration window to WinButtonEdit.

It can be set to auto-update changes to the preview (default off, there's an Apply button), and the sliders max. range can be set (default 128)(both from the Options menu)
When pressing a button in the preview, the selected button is activated in WBE, and the Image parameters windows is updated as well (when open), any image parameters changes made are 'saved' to the associated button.
A screenshot was added to the release message.

WinButtons version was only bumped to align the update with WBE.

Here's an update release of:

WinButtons 3.5.1.1

and

WinButtonEdit 1.0.5.1

(Extra emphasis to WBE this time)

Download available from the release message, linking to my DCMembers pages.

Updates can be downloaded also from the WinButtonEdit File/Check for updates option, using DCUpdater when installed.

Any feedback or feature requests are still welcome, as usual

cranioscopical · « **Reply #214 on:** October 08, 2011, 12:09 PM »

Thanks, I'm off to have a game with it!

nudone · « **Reply #215 on:** October 08, 2011, 01:18 PM »

Very good. Will try as soon as my new pc arrives (hopefully it will work for more than a week unlike the one bought recently).

I'm finding that my entire pc is labouring now that I have several screens attached to it; I've only got 32 bit at the moment and it seems that having two graphics cards, three monitors plus the MIMO are reserving a very large chunk of ram. Almost anything I do forces the hard drives to start thrashing away with the cache.

Ath · « **Reply #216 on:** October 08, 2011, 01:28 PM »

Almost anything I do forces the hard drives to start thrashing away with the cache.
-nudone (October 08, 2011, 01:18 PM)

I thought I had system-speed issues after installing the DisplayLink drivers, so I defragged my boot-drive (using MyDefrag with the Systemdisk-daily script), and it has helped quite a bit, but it's still slower starting up then it was before the DisplayLink drivers. Guess there isn't much more we can do about that. I don't have speed-issues after the initial slower start.

cranioscopical · « **Reply #217 on:** October 08, 2011, 05:29 PM »

I added an Image parameters configuration window to WinButtonEdit.
-Ath (October 08, 2011, 09:37 AM)

This is good stuff, Ath

Next up, mind reading?

I think the next requirement for me will be a bigger touch screen. I can use my file manager by touch on the MIMO, even though it's tiny, so accuracy isn't a problem. Size defeats function, however, in that I need visible labels for the buttons that I use now, unless and until I can come up with enough meaningful button images. For me, 12 point type seems to be comfortable and that eats up screen real estate.

Thank goodness for @LF@

Ath · « **Reply #218 on:** October 11, 2011, 03:25 PM »

I added an extra confirmation before starting the DCUHelper program. It also asks to save the current wbuc/ini file if that's not saved since the last change.

A minor update for:

WinButtonEdit 1.0.5.2

Download available from the release message, linking to my DCMembers pages.

Updates can be downloaded also from the WinButtonEdit File/Check for updates option, using DCUpdater when installed.

Any feedback or feature requests are still welcome, as usual

nudone · « **Reply #219 on:** October 11, 2011, 03:51 PM »

Okay, as I mentioned I probably won't be trying any WinButton stuff until the new pc arrives (which I've now been informed won't even be posted until the 20th) but I have one suggestion to keep you busy; busy pondering if nothing more.

Is it possible to make the buttons transparent? The idea would be to create all the graphics for the buttons in one large single background image - all carefully arranged, of course, so that the positions matched the transparent buttons above. This just strikes me as the quickest way to develop a series of buttons that have icons on them, especially if there are forty or more buttons in the layout.

Maybe it's just something to consider if you do a rewrite of the program.

cranioscopical · « **Reply #220 on:** October 11, 2011, 04:35 PM »

The idea would be to create all the graphics for the buttons in one large single background image - all carefully arranged, of course, so that the positions matched the transparent buttons above.
-nudone (October 11, 2011, 03:51 PM)

You're thinking of something like a background prepared from a psd with one 'icons' layer and another layer (or multiple layers) with only the text above that? That locks out multiple-state buttons but that doesn't matter a lot to me. Sometimes I'd like to see 'down' or 'up' but usually it's obvious from context.

What a pain about the delay with your machine! Then there'll be the faffing around getting it set up the way you want it to be. Win7 pretty much forced me to change the way I set up machines and I still find myself going for hotkeys that 'don't do that' anymore.

Thanks for the update, Ath! Any additional 'safety checks' are welcome.

nudone · « **Reply #221 on:** October 11, 2011, 04:49 PM »

Yes, the idea would to have a psd like that, maybe even with the text on a layer too.

Okay, another related idea and this might be a bit too radicle: could HTML and CSS be used to control the button layout and appearance? This is what win8 metro is using (isn't it), which would make even more sense with winbuttons if the layout was just an HTML page.

Ath · « **Reply #222 on:** October 11, 2011, 05:08 PM »

Is it possible to make the buttons transparent? The idea would be to create all the graphics for the buttons in one large single background image - all carefully arranged, of course, so that the positions matched the transparent buttons above.
-nudone (October 11, 2011, 03:51 PM)

I've been experimenting with that a few weeks back, but couldn't see a use-case for that, but this way it sounds plausible

Worries me though if you'd want to move some button(s) to another spot in the grid, you would have to re-do the graphic background (guess it'll be implemented in that way) for that. $:-\$
Maintaining several smaller images separately sounds easier to me, but I'll see what I can do.

That locks out multiple-state buttons
-cranioscopical (October 11, 2011, 04:35 PM)

That is another feature I've been thinking about, maybe semi-transparent colors for each state would work, will be in the same test as above I guess

Maybe it's just something to consider if you do a rewrite of the program.
-nudone (October 11, 2011, 03:51 PM)

What I started a month ago has been 'postponed' for now, as I decided it's better not done in Delphi 7. My original, rather ambitious, plan of re-doing it in wpf/c# (back in March/April, geez was it that long ago?) is much more likely to succeed, but it's probably not going to happen before 2012 is on the calendar.

Ath · « **Reply #223 on:** October 11, 2011, 05:09 PM »

and this might be a bit too radicle
-nudone (October 11, 2011, 04:49 PM)

Maybe so, but it would need a totally different approach anyway. Maybe something to consider for that re-write

nudone · « **Reply #224 on:** October 12, 2011, 01:42 AM »

Hmm, it would make button repositioning difficult wouldn't it. It seems that there isn't a perfect solution.

If you can ever manage it, it would be brilliant if you could do drag and drop button arrangements. Maybe that's another HTML, CSS plus JavaScript idea.